Steiner pleads for end of 'tough' triple-headers

Haas team boss Guenther Steiner hopes a normalization of F1's season when the Covid-19 pandemic subsides will lead to the end of the sport's exacting triple-headers.

Last weekend's Austrian Grand Prix completed this year's first run of three consecutive races, and Steiner said the demanding and relentless schedule had taken its toll on his crews.

"I mean, I must admit, I think they are now looking forward to get home," said the Haas boss.

Steiner accepted how F1's grueling schedule had become an inevitable by-product of Grand Prix racing's need to build its tentative calendar around the exceptional restrictions and logistical constraints linked to the global pandemic.

"At the moment, we are still keeping on talking because of COVID, the calendar changes, so I wouldn't say there are reasons why this is the way it is," he said.

"But we need to try to not have triple headers. I think more doubleheaders are better than one tripleheader, it is better to have consistent doubleheaders then four tripleheaders in a season.

"With tripleheaders, some people are away a month until they get back home and, in that month, did three races which is also pretty stressful.

"I'm sure FOM will look into it but, at the moment, it is COVID situation because one of these tripleheaders, like this one, was just thrown in because the calendar is a moving target."

F1's first triple-header was somewhat mitigated by the fact that the last tworaces took place at the same venue.

But teams won't enjoy that small luxury when racing resumes after F1's summer break at the end of August when teams will travel from Spa to Zandvoort and then on to Monza, while the Russia-Turkey-Japan fly-away leg should prove even more exhausting.

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"It will be tougher, that one will be a lot tougher because you have got the timezone changes in as well and, obviously, the jet lag which goes with it," commented Steiner.

"Here on Monday, or last Monday it is now, everybody had the day off. I gave everybody the day off so they could do some activities around here because it's very good.

"But if you fly from one country to the other one, there is nothing. Your day off is spent on an aeroplane."

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